Embassy of the South Pacific

[Comfed]

It's great to see an update on the SPSF! It's also great to see us working with EPSA, arguably our closest non-defender military ally in the game right now.

Quietly adds you to the TNP enemies list.

Seriously, though, great to see the SPSF doing stuff! Quality RP as always. Congratulations to Prairie!

[Qvait]

It's great to see an update on the SPSF! It's also great to see us working with EPSA, arguably our closest non-defender military ally in the game right now.

Quietly adds you to the TNP enemies list.

Ruh-roh. You can take solace in the fact that I believe that TNP is the South's closest non-defender cultural ally. I think I should shut up now before another region enters the fray.

[Varanius]

Congrats Prarie! Well deserved I’m sure.

[Daytime to Night]

“I swear, plot armor is the only thing that kept me alive here.” Phoenix sighed as she felt revived by the sun’s rays, her skin returning to their normal color as she shook the rain off of her. She looked up at Prarie, then over the other side of the mountain, and gasped. “Oh my gosh you can really see everything from here.”

“Plot armor…?” Prarie asked, confused. “Is that something that can help us…?”

this is excellent

Congratulations to Prarie and Melix, you've both been awesome!

[North Prarie]

Thanks all! It's a pleasure to continue to work with Phoe and the rest of the SPSF

Congrats to Melix!! You've been an awesome and enthusiastic trainee and I am sure that will continue as soldier!

[TSP Foreign Office]

PRESS RELEASE

---

STATEMENT ON THE BLACK HAWKS' VIOLATION OF SOVEREIGNTY

11 NOVEMBER 2020

Fellow South Pacificans and friends abroad,

This week, our Office of WA Legislation (OWL) noticed suspicious activity in its surveys on Security Council resolutions. In an effort to increase to participation and representation in the World Assembly, OWL holds regular RMB-based debates on World Assembly resolutions. The outcome of these debates strongly influences our Delegate’s vote on the resolutions.

Our allies in 10000 Islands also alerted the Cabinet and the Council on Regional Security on this suspicious activity and provided more information. We have strong evidence that members of The Black Hawks attempted to manipulate the outcome of Security Council votes related to their interests.

• The nation “Rebbid” belongs to known player Martyn, who is a corporal in The Black Hawks, and was founded merely 2 days before immediately joining the World Assembly and casting a vote, without explanation, in favor of “Commend Twobagger.”
• The nation “GlowGolden” was founded at the same time and also immediately joined the World Assembly and cast a vote, without explanation, in favor of “Commend Twobagger.” We believe this nation may belong to Steak Paul, a known member of The Black Hawks, due to Steak Paul resigning from the World Assembly a mere 30 seconds before GlowGolden was admitted.
• Both Rebbid and GlowGolden nations had moved into newly-founded passworded regions before moving into The South Pacific. We believe this may have been part of an alternate plan to pad “Commend Twobagger” with approvals by creating small single-purposes Delegates, in case it could not reach the voting queue organically.
• A similar pattern was spotted with the nation “Seltin.” This nation is older, founded in September 2020 but only days ago rejoined the World Assembly. Their only activity in The South Pacific has been to vote in OWL and their votes track with the interests of The Black Hawks. They voted in favor of “Condemn Ever-Wandering Souls”, which was widely considered to be a thinly-veiled congratulation for the well-known raider. They also voted in favor of “Commend Twobagger.”

The Cabinet of The South Pacific considers this a grave and gross violation of our regional sovereignty by The Black Hawks. We endeavor to create an open community and foster a representative government, and the OWL program has been a great vehicle to introduce the community to the World Assembly. To abuse and attempt to manipulate the outcome of these votes to serve a foreign enemy’s interest is an attack on the integrity of our democracy. The Cabinet retains the authority to override an OWL vote, exactly to prevent something like this from succeeding. We shall do so when necessary. Let it be known to all enemies of the Coalition, and those who would think we can be so easily manipulated, that The South Pacific and our allies are watching.

The Cabinet also takes this opportunity to address the Security Council resolution that has inspired The Black Hawks to again attempt to violate our sovereignty. “Commend Twobagger” is a product of the worst habits of the Security Council and the Gameplay community in general. Let’s be clear: Twobagger betrayed 10000 Islands and joined their enemies in The Black Hawks. Regardless of the motive or anybody’s opinion on that, they are not an active defender and 10000 Islands does not approve of being used in such a manipulative way to commend them. The commendation purposefully misleads the rest of the game into thinking that Twobagger is a current wonderous defender, when in all actuality they are a turncoat raider.

“Commend Twobagger” represents the epitome of bad faith, pettiness, dishonesty, and disrespect that we have sadly come to expect from The Black Hawks. This kind of abuse of the Security Council debases the institution. When a resolution can be pushed through using such dishonest and despicable bad faith, it devalues the whole purpose of Commendations and the Security Council itself. Too many regions underestimate the damage these stunts do. The Black Hawks, and those who aid and abet their remorseless bad faith, are sowing a momentary and fleeting feeling of joy in sticking it to defenders. But we will all reap the disillusionment and discontent that comes when we throw the principles of honestly, good faith, and honorable conduct out of the window.

The South Pacific has voted against this commendation, and we encourage all regions, and all of our allies and partners to join us in doing so. It’s time to stand up for what’s right and foster a game that no longer promotes and rewards manipulation, bad faith, and trolling.

Faithfully yours,
The Cabinet

---

[Lord Dominator]

Point of information, none of the actions involving voting in TSP's WA debates were ever condoned or discussed by the Council of Hawks prior to said actions occurring.

Once we were made aware by a third party, we found those involved and they were berated for said actions.

[United Federated States of Omega]

Anything TBH does now is cheapened by the fact they knew their members violated our sovereignty, sat on the information, and didn't even think to tell us, much less do anything of actual substance about it. This is a "we're sorry we got caught" and nothing more.

[Comfed]

I hope that regions don't switch their WA vote on this because some TBH people were doing stuff they shouldn't have done.

[Custadia]

As Lazcorp's managing director, I'd like to express our disappointment in these three raiders' actions. In order to discourage violations of GCR sovereignty such as this, our delegate has agreed to vote against the proposal in question. Subterfuge of this kind ought to blow up in the perpetrators' faces.

[Tinhampton]

Our allies in 10000 Islands also alerted the Cabinet and the Council on Regional Security on this suspicious activity...

Why is it acceptable for "our allies in 10000 Islands" (who may or may not be eligible to cast a legal vote in TSP's OWL program, since we do not know who exactly supplied this information) to potentially influence the vote of TSP's Delegate in the form of identifying "suspicious" OWL voters, when those same "suspicious" voters - who, by some miraculous coincidence, are perfectly entitled to cast an OWL vote and have that vote counted - cannot do so? This is not on the level of a "Violation of Sovereignty" and this is not even on the level of an IRL state governor purging the voter rolls - more accurately, this is akin to a person presenting their ID at a polling station, casting an early in-person vote, and then learning two days before election day that their vote will be conveniently discarded because they moved into the state a few months ago and they voted for the candidate that's the opposite party to the Secretary of State anyway.

Let it be known that the next time a sincere Commendation of Twobagger comes up, I will very likely support it - and since it's fair game for Kuriko to send a tag:wa on Commend Texas because "the raiders influence on the GCRs and large independents would have seen it fail" otherwise, I will more than happily do the same the next time such a resolution comes to vote to prevent its being sunk by defender-oriented GCRs such as The South Pacific.

[Aleister]

I feel like I'm in a fever dream.
Since when do raiders apologize to defenders for messing with defenders...
Also, this is about two puppets voting on a resolution? ~210 nations from TSP have voted on the resolution. Am I genuinely misinterpreting this post or is this really all about thinking two puppets (or let's say even if they had evidence of 10 puppets) could manipulate the voting in TSP in their favor? What? Is there something I'm missing about how the OWL system works maybe?
Hello?
Can anybody hear me?
Hellllooooo?

[Big Bad Badger]

This is petty and this is lame. Y'all are going to make me want to like TBH again.

We (my spooky associates and I) have been doing things like this to TSP and others for years. If a handful of WA nations are going to swing your votes then your WA dept needs to get better.

/me wiggles spooky fingers in your general direction

[Office of WA Legislation]

I feel like I'm in a fever dream.
Since when do raiders apologize to defenders for messing with defenders...
Also, this is about two puppets voting on a resolution? ~210 nations from TSP have voted on the resolution. Am I genuinely misinterpreting this post or is this really all about thinking two puppets (or let's say even if they had evidence of 10 puppets) could manipulate the voting in TSP in their favor? What? Is there something I'm missing about how the OWL system works maybe?
Hello?
Can anybody hear me?
Hellllooooo?

The Office of WA Legislation's voting system allows all WA member citizens of the South Pacific (i.e. those resident in good faith) to determine the vote of the delegate by posting their vote with an optional opinion on the RMB of the region The South Pacific WA Voting Center. We pride ourselves on the fact that we do not sequester the determination of the delegate's vote on a sub-sub-forum of our offsite, but rather make it widely available to our RMB-based community as well.

[United States of Vietnam]

This is petty and this is lame. Y'all are going to make me want to like TBH again.

We (my spooky associates and I) have been doing things like this to TSP and others for years. If a handful of WA nations are going to swing your votes then your WA dept needs to get better.

/me wiggles spooky fingers in your general direction

I don't think there is really any way to stop this aside from detecting suspicious activities like this. I am not sure how you can make it better. The same can be done for any region with a WA voting program as most only need you to be in the WA to vote. Also, the Cabinet has the final authority on SC votes so this is not a problem for us on that front.

[Refuge Isle]

Let it be known that the next time a sincere Commendation of Twobagger comes up, I will very likely support it

I am certain that TBH will appreciate your four votes.

[Aleister]

The Office of WA Legislation's voting system allows all WA member citizens of the South Pacific (i.e. those resident in good faith) to determine the vote of the delegate by posting their vote with an optional opinion on the RMB of the region The South Pacific WA Voting Center. We pride ourselves on the fact that we do not sequester the determination of the delegate's vote on a sub-sub-forum of our offsite, but rather make it widely available to our RMB-based community as well.

What did their posts look like? And even then, two nations? I would understand making this a story if they were even campaigning within the region/on the RMB to vote their way, but did even that happen?

I once piled like 7 votes last minute on Roavin for the Prime Minister? election I think that was like a region-side poll. It was against Aumelodia? I think. Not sure if it was Prime Minister, but he would have won too if I had found out about it sooner! And we're talking about two puppets that just voted on a resolution and didn't do anything else to campaign?

[Tinhampton]

I feel like I'm in a fever dream.
Since when do raiders apologize to defenders for messing with defenders...
Also, this is about two puppets voting on a resolution? ~210 nations from TSP have voted on the resolution. Am I genuinely misinterpreting this post or is this really all about thinking two puppets (or let's say even if they had evidence of 10 puppets) could manipulate the voting in TSP in their favor? What? Is there something I'm missing about how the OWL system works maybe?
Hello?
Can anybody hear me?
Hellllooooo?

The Office of WA Legislation's voting system allows all WA member citizens of the South Pacific (i.e. those resident in good faith) to determine the vote of the delegate by posting their vote with an optional opinion on the RMB of the region The South Pacific WA Voting Center. We pride ourselves on the fact that we do not sequester the determination of the delegate's vote on a sub-sub-forum of our offsite, but rather make it widely available to our RMB-based community as well.

The official OWL document on how to vote is clear that "if you want to vote, your nation needs to be in the South Pacific and a member of the WA first," without any "resident in good faith" qualifications attached. (Seltin, GlowGolden, and Rebbid all had their votes left mysteriously uncounted in the final Commend Twobagger tally.) Do we want every legal vote or just every moral vote counted next time?

[Jakker City]

It is unfortunate that this takes focus away from the commendation itself. I get that there has been a lot of talk about my intentions writing it, but ultimately I have worked as hard as I have on this proposal because Twobagger truly deserves it and yet he has gotten so much hate. Hate that I would say goes beyond the typical reactions in this game. As well as a dismissal of their achievements that I know would be different if they were still a defender. 

I get that this will be used to push the proposal towards failing. It was great that so many people came forward in favor of the proposal and of Twobagger. I will see if someone else will want to take it on for a future attempt. Hopefully that will then allow the focus to be on and remain on Twobagger's contributions to the game.

[Qvait]

I very much appreciate the Cabinet of the South Pacific taking forceful action on this egregious violation of regional sovereignty.

[Aumeltopia]

Out of curiosity, can a legal rep for TSP point out what was wrong with moving into the region, endorsing all of their Guardians (not a legal requirement) and then following the letter of their law to vote for something that was receiving support from within that region already?

Further, if I choose to move into a GCR, am I forbidden from partaking in the democratic process within that region? And if yes, is that purely because I'm a raider? I've left because I clearly wasn't welcome and if that's going to be my experience of GCRs, I'll be quite happy to steer clear, but this seems very unfair, especially repremanding someone who had literally nothing to do with it.

I am no legal representative, but those resident in the South Pacific in bad faith -- for example, someone attempting to hide the fact that they are a puppet while moving to the South Pacific purely to influence our WA vote -- are specifically excluded from the definition of citizenship. Casting OWL votes has always been a privilege open only to citizens of the Coalition. However, all nations of the world are invited to voice their opinions on every proposal by posting an opinion to the OWL message board. OWL appreciates those opinions and I was a bit saddened that the TBH stackers didn't even see fit to explain their opinions -- something we strongly encourage of TSP voters.

EDIT: I see the post I was quoting has now been deleted. But I've preserved it for posterity, I suppose.

[Nova Vandalia]

Out of curiosity, can a legal rep for TSP point out what was wrong with moving into the region, endorsing all of their Guardians (not a legal requirement) and then following the letter of their law to vote for something that was receiving support from within that region already?

Further, if I choose to move into a GCR, am I forbidden from partaking in the democratic process within that region? And if yes, is that purely because I'm a raider? I've left because I clearly wasn't welcome and if that's going to be my experience of GCRs, I'll be quite happy to steer clear, but this seems very unfair, especially repremanding someone who had literally nothing to do with it.

I am no legal representative, but those resident in the South Pacific in bad faith -- for example, someone attempting to hide the fact that they are a puppet while moving to the South Pacific purely to influence our WA vote -- are specifically excluded from the definition of citizenship. Casting OWL votes has always been a privilege open only to citizens of the Coalition. However, all nations of the world are invited to voice their opinions on every proposal by posting an opinion to the OWL message board. OWL appreciates those opinions and I was a bit saddened that the TBH stackers didn't even see fit to explain their opinions -- something we strongly encourage of TSP voters.

EDIT: I see the post I was quoting has now been deleted. But I've preserved it for posterity, I suppose.

And what is the definition of bad faith here? Voting for a proposal you all openly didn't want to approve. Honestly this feels like y'all circumnavigating your own system to push a very specific agenda, and to play the victim on the global stage, and It's just so happens that the one region more dedicated to seeing this fail than you all, is the one that happened to know that there was "Bad" actors in your midst. This honestly smells of convenience rather than genuine outrage.

[Tinhampton]

I very much appreciate the Cabinet of the South Pacific taking forceful action on this egregious violation of regional sovereignty.

Even if the votes of Rebbid, GlowGolden and Seltin had been counted, the OWL vote on this resolution would still have gone 6-3 AGAINST. The Cabinet statement does not represent a change in TSP's mind and has no effect other than to "encourage all regions... to join us in" voting against Commend Twobagger (emphasis added by yours truly). How is this any less a "violation of sovereignty" to any non-TSP region than a failed attempt to convince a single GCR delegate to vote in favour of Commending Twobagger? If the Cabinet statement is forceful, it is only in terms of describing Commend Twobagger or the Black Hawks as having acted in "bad faith" or not in "good faith" five times in the space of less than 180 words.

snip

I am no legal representative, but those resident in the South Pacific in bad faith -- for example, someone attempting to hide the fact that they are a puppet while moving to the South Pacific purely to influence our WA vote -- are specifically excluded from the definition of citizenship. Casting OWL votes has always been a privilege open only to citizens of the Coalition. However, all nations of the world are invited to voice their opinions on every proposal by posting an opinion to the OWL message board. OWL appreciates those opinions and we were a bit saddened that the TBH stackers didn't even see fit to explain their opinions -- something we strongly encourage of TSP voters.

After the Great Council of 2016, it was determined that all citizens of TSP before that point would become Legislators; TSP's Charter (and indeed the rest of its constitutional law) further makes no reference to citizenship other than to task the Minister of Engagement with "providing graphics to the government and citizens of the Coalition." I do not see anywhere in the OWL how-to-vote document or anywhere other than Page 90 of this thread that declares or even implies that only "citizens of the Coalition" or Legislators may cast an OWL vote; the ability to do so is quite clearly reserved to any person with a WA nation in The South Pacific, without regards to their intention.

[Qvait]

There is an unquestionable fact in this scandal: TSP's sovereignty was violated by suspicious actors, and I know that the Cabinet would have never put out this statement if it wasn't, because it was. I'm speaking on this as a former MoFA and current CRS member. If any other region had been the subject of such an egregious violation, they would have as much right as any other region to protest this transgression.

[Virgolia]

And what is the definition of bad faith here? Voting for a proposal you all openly didn't want to approve.

I'd say joining the region specifically to affect the outcome of a vote is a good example of bad faith.